Pity those of us who monitor the ups and downs of China’s popular microblog platform, Sina Weibo. For every story its users spread in defiance of local censorship, there follows a clampdown.

Whether it’s the latest strike against rumors, or real name registration, or newly banned keywords, there’s always another restriction in the works as the service struggles to keep a lid on sensitive conversations without driving away its user base. “China tightens grip on social media,” we might report, as the Financial Times did in April. And last October. (The U.K.-based newspaper also noted China’s grip tightening on lawyers in March.) It’s not that these headlines are misleading. They simply show how difficult it is to illustrate the grip that always tightens, but never quite suffocates.

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Blog: Chinese microblog regulates, suspends users–again

CPJ’s new analysis identifies Eritrea, North Korea, Syria, Iran as worst

Originally posted here:
10 Most Censored Countries

News of blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng has been censored for months. International news reports of his escape last week from incarceration in his home in Linyi, Shandong–apparently to U.S. protection, although his whereabouts remain unclear–has only intensified that censorship. That is unlikely to stop discussion among those familiar with Chen’s case.

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Blog: Blind lawyer spurs news blackout in China

Read more:
Empowering independent media: U.S. efforts to foster a free press and an open Internet

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Beset by online surveillance and content filtering, netizens fight on

Beijing-based blogger Woeser reported on her website Invisible Tibet today that she has been confined to her residence by Beijing public security officers who are stationed outside her home. Woeser, an outspoken critic of Chinese government policies in Tibet, has recently written about a series of recent self-immolations among monks and arrests
of writers in western China.

Technology has democratized news publishing, rattling regimes that see their survival dependent on control of information. Video footage of repression from Burma to Syria to Egypt dramatically illustrates the benefits of Internet platforms and social media. Yet the Arab uprisings of 2011 also demonstrate the urgent need for providers and users of digital tools to understand the dangers of deploying them in repressive nations. As threats to online journalists grow in scope and frequency, they also underscore CPJ’s mandate to be a truly global organization. More journalists need CPJ’s help than ever before.

Original post:
Attacks on the Press in 2011: Preface

Legislation for Internet security can quickly turn into a weapon against the free press. Cybercrime laws are intended to extend existing penal codes to the online world, but they can easily be broadened to criminalize standard journalistic practices. By Danny O’Brien

Follow this link:
Attacks on the Press in 2011: Regulating the Internet

Even as trade and new systems of communication turn us into global citizens, the information we need to ensure accountability often stops at national borders. New platforms like social media are valuable tools, but the battle against censorship is hardly over. By Joel Simon

Excerpt from:
Attacks on the Press in 2011: The Global Citizen

Snapshot of Voice of America website under cyber attack by Iranian hackers.

Voice of America (VOA) Director David Ensor is taking on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and its Iranian Cyber Army!  Well, not exactly but close, at least symbolically.
 
As addressed in a recent BBG Watch article, Voice of America (VOA) director David Ensor has posted comments on his blog critical of Iran’s jamming of VOA Farsi television programs intended to reach Iranian audiences by satellite.
 
BBG Watch points out, Mr. Ensor and/or the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) can complain all they want, but absent an effective back-up plan, US international broadcasting is being stymied by the Iranians.
 
This is more than communications warfare.  This is the Iranians – and others – waging a form of economic warfare against the United States.  Satellites cost money.  Airtime on satellites costs money.  Producing programs that few if anyone is able to watch costs more money, along with equipment, personnel salaries, etc.  It’s an effective tactic, especially when the United States is not flush with cash these days and won’t be for the foreseeable future.
 
The Iranians are not likely to back down from what they are doing.  And from their perspective, the fact that Ensor gives them some free attention and publicity may be seen as validating the effectiveness of their actions.  It’s all about perception.  The perception the Iranians are trying to create is that the United States is weak and powerless to stop them from what they are doing.  And to a certain extent, they are correct.
 
As to an effective BBG/IBB back-up plan to deal with the situation -
 
There is no effective back-up plan.
 
The ultimate objective of the agency’s “flim, flam strategic plan” is to be wholly reliant on the Internet as its sole source platform for audio, video and text.  This “plan” is inherently vulnerable.  Iran, China and other nations have the capability to control or take down the Internet and other forms of communication technology at will and have done so.  In places where we have strategic interests (Russia, China and Iran), US international broadcasting is right on the cusp of being rendered irrelevant.
 
The only effective plan for US international broadcasting begins with radio:
 
First, radio goes everywhere.  Attempts to jam radio broadcasts over shortwave are not wholly or uniformly effective.  That makes radio the core strategic asset of US international broadcasting.
 
Second, radio signals cover the greatest expanse of territory.  They can blanket a country if not entire geographic regions.  The more territory you cover, the more listeners you can reach, the better investment of American taxpayer dollars.
 
Third, radio is the most affordable at the receiving end.  The first order of business should be making maximum use of the medium that is able to reach the largest number of people by the cheapest means available for the audience.
 
Everything after this is extra.  For the person at the receiving end, the other mediums of television and the Internet start ratcheting up affordability, accessibility and connectivity.
 
Of course, in the mindset of the BBG/IBB, the first thing to get rid of is radio!  They want you to believe that radio is old-fashioned.  Tell that to people who listen to Washington, DC radio station WTOP and rely upon it for all kinds of relevant news and information.  That kind of reliance is no different when applied to international audiences.  If the radio programming is compelling, people will listen.
 
Instead of expanding the audience for US international broadcasting, the agency’s “scam plan,” at its ultimate goal, has the effect of narrowing the potential audience.  Either the majority general population hasn’t the per capita income to purchase the technology, can’t get connected to the technology or is at the mercy of a national government’s ability to block connectivity and expose individuals to retaliation, arrest or other punitive measures.
 
Why does BBG/IBB research show that radio has far superior numbers to its Internet operations?  Read the paragraphs above.  The BBG/IBB is going out of its way to cripple the effectiveness of US international broadcasting.
 
It is unlikely that the Iranians will be much disturbed by Mr. Ensor’s blog and will likely continue to commit itself to continuing the disruption of VOA’s Persian News Network (PNN) programs.
 
But there’s more to what the Iranians are doing:
 
Recently, the Iranians have expanded their global broadcasting outreach to include television broadcasts in Spanish.
 
More than likely, this is a gesture of solidarity with the regime of Hugo Chavez, the Iranians ally in Venezuela and Latin America.  It’s a slick maneuver on the part of both the Iranians and Chavez, the second greatest irritant to the United States in the Southern Hemisphere next to Fidel Castro.
 
Chavez sees himself as the likely ideological successor to Castro and no doubt wants to build upon that image.  That makes his connection to the Iranians very disturbing.  As part of its nuclear ambitions, the Iranians are known to be working on increasing the range of their ballistic missiles.  The last thing the United States needs is a surprise coming out of the Southern Hemisphere, a scenario in which Iranian ballistic missiles are forward deployed to Venezuela.  Chavez is certainly capable of making that kind of deal with the Iranians.
 
At present, we don’t know much about what the BBG/IBB is doing in its broadcasts to Latin America.  It’s off the radar – and with the BBG/IBB that’s never a good thing.  We hear of protests outside the offices of Radio/TV Marti in Miami with Cuban expatriates unhappy with what they see as the agency going soft on the Castro regime.  That could be an outward indication of an eroded effectiveness of the broadcasting effort to Latin America in general.
 
At the end of the day, here’s the deal:
 
The Iranian government is very determined to achieve its national goals and objectives.  It looks for openings, opportunities.  Latin America is on the Iranian radar.
 
The BBG/IBB represents just the opposite – a lack of determination and commitment compromising the nature and effectiveness of the US Government international broadcasting effort.
 
See the big picture:
 
The BBG/IBB: strategically outmaneuvered once again.
 
The Federalist
February 10, 2012
 
 

See the article here:
Reporters Without Borders writes to Google about new Blogger terms of service

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China – Questions about freedom of information will be relayed to Chinese vice-president 2/2

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China – Questions about freedom of information will be relayed to Chinese vice-president

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New media scholar Nikolay Rudenskiy is author of ‘pro-Putin Bias in VOA’ study

Last
week, Twitter provoked a fierce debate online when it announced a new capability–and related policy–to hide tweets on a country-specific basis. By building this feature into its website’s basic code, Twitter said it hoped to offer a more tailored response to legal demands to remove tweets globally. The company will inform users if any tweet they see has been obscured, and provide a record of all demands to remove content with the U.S.-based site chillingeffects.org.

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CPJ Internet Channel: Can selective blocking pre-empt wider censorship?

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Twitter and internet freedom: distinguish democracies from dictatorships

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United States – Reporters Without Borders to close its English-language site for 24 hours in protest against SOPA and…

Excerpt from:
‘Old white guys’ meet ‘cute young intern’ and First Amendment at the Broadcasting Board of Governors

Last week, President Obama signed into law a bill that expands sanctions against Belarus, whose authoritarian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko continues to imprison his opponents and critics. Lukashenko unleashed the latest crackdown hours after the flawed December 2010 presidential vote, which declared him winner of a fourth term. Repression in Belarus is ongoing. Last week, authorities further tightened their grip on the media by restricting access to blacklisted websites. On Monday, a district court in Minsk jailed an independent reporter for filming a one-man protest vigil in front of the KGB headquarters.

See the article here:
Blog: What US can’t accept in Belarus, it supports in Uzbekistan

Original post:
Iran – Death sentences and national Internet – escalating repression in Iran

New York, December 23, 2011 — The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns China’s harsh sentencing of online journalist and activist Chen Wei, who was handed a nine-year prison term on Friday for “inciting
subversion.”

Excerpt from:
Chinese writer-dissident given nine years for online posts

In the next three months, users of China’s microblog weibo.com — “weibo” is the generic Chinese term for Twitter-like platforms — run by the huge sina.com (the English site is here) news portal, entertainment and blogging site, will have to start providing their real-world identities to the site, instead of simply being able to register. It seems likely the users of competitor tencent.com (English here) will have to do the same, though the government
hasn’t made that clear in recent announcements, dating back to December 16.

See the article here:
Blog: In China, real people vs. Internet minders

BBGWatch.com – December 20, 2011 – Victor Ashe, a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), has called for keeping open the radio broadcasting facility on U.S. territory that is capable of transmitting shortwave radio programs to China. Some Obama Administration officials want to shut down the last remaining U.S.–based international broadcast station located in North Carolina. Ashe also called for urgent reforms in the way the federal agency in charge of U.S. international broadcasting operates. Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have criticized the BBG for lacking transparency and exercising bad judgement with regard to broadcasting to China.

Victor Ashe’s statement released as a personal wish list for 2012 is unprecedented for a member of the BBG since these presidentially-appointed officials usually do not publicly express their misgivings about how their agency is being managed.

Ashe has become an outspoken critic of the permanent BBG bureaucracy in charge of planning and day-to-day operations of U.S. international broadcasting. He has made his displeasure known by visiting broadcasting services and technical facilities that some of the other BBG members wanted to eliminate based on the recommendations they had received from their executive staff.

It is not clear how the BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson and the other members of the bipartisan board will react to Ashe’s statement. Isaacson, the former Chairman and CEO of CNN, former editor of Time Magazine and the author of the best-selling biography of Steve Jobs, is a Democrat. Ashe, a Republican, was the longest serving mayor of Knoxville and the President to the U.S. Conference of Mayors. He had also served as the U.S. Ambassador to Poland from 2004 to 2009.

In his statement, Ashe calls for keeping open the Edward R. Murrow Greenville Transmitting Station in Greenville, North Carolina, which he had recently visited despite objections from some of the BBG executives who want to close it down.

Ashe said in his statement that this facility is the only one on American soil where the U.S. government has jurisdiction. He pointed out that a similar station in the Philippines, operated by the BBG, is barred from transmitting radio programs to China due to the Philippine government’s reluctance to upset the Chinese government. “That could not happen on American territory,” Ashe noted in his statement.

BBG Governor Victor Ashe and VOA Director David Ensor meeting with VOA China Branch employees - BBG photo

Ashe, joined by the Voice of America Director David Ensor, also met last week with broadcasters of the VOA China Branch in Washington, D.C., 45 of whom were at risk of being fired and their radio and television programs terminated. BBG officials wanted to rely only on the Internet to deliver VOA news in Mandarin to China despite the fact that the Chinese government censors the Internet and blocks VOA Chinese websites. BBG officials claimed that the money saved from ending broadcasts and firing journalists would be used to expand online and new media presence in China.

BBG members had initially accepted their staff’s recommendation to end VOA radio and television programs to China on October 1, 2011, but later reversed their decision after a storm of protests by Chinese Americans, human rights organizations, and the action by members of Congress from both parties to block the silencing of broadcasts.

Ashe was reportedly instrumental in getting other BBG members to sign a Certificate of Recognition, which he and Ensor presented last week to the VOA China Branch to mark the 70th anniversary of VOA broadcasting to China. Ashe expressed his confidence in Ensor’s leadership.

Earlier, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) public affairs office had refused numerous employee requests to issue a press release about the Capitol Hill reception, hosted by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Voice of America (VOA) broadcasting to China. BBG public affairs experts also ignored an unprecendented video statement in support of VOA broadcasting to China recorded by the Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Ashe is said to be also concerned by the way of some of the BBG top managers treat their subordinates and by the second-class status of the agency’s full-time contract employees. In his statement, Ashe refers to the government-wide employee surveys conducted by the Office of Personnel Management, in which the BBG has been consistently rated as being among the worst-managed federal agencies.

Ashe’s comment about “boorish behavior in the work place” may be a partial reference to a description used by a yet to be identified top official appointed by the BBG who was said to be discussing his desire to promote his favorite employees and contrasting them with “old white guys.” Sources have told BBG Watch that some BBG members wanted to have the official fired for making that remark but could not get a majority vote. The official is believed to be a former CNN associate of the BBG Chairman. Several former CNN employees have been hired in recent months by the BBG. BBG Watch sources describe Isaacson was well-meaning but too removed and distracted by the promotion of his recently published biography of Steve Jobs.

Ashe’s statement points to one success in his efforts to improve employee morale. Due to his recent intervention, contract employees at the BBG headquarters in Washington, D.C. were able to receive flu immunization shots to limit the risk of infection to the entire workforce. Until Ashe raised this issue in an open meeting, BBG executives were preventing these employees from receiving free flu shots, as well as denying them most other usual employment benefits, which these full time contractors still do not get.

In his statement, Ashe called for action and not just words to improve employee morale. Contract employees represent nearly half of the Voice of America workforce.

Ashe also paid a recent visit to Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa headquarters in Northern Virginia and praised Brian Conniff, President of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc. (MBN), and his staff for their dedication in preparing broadcasts to the Middle East.

Ashe is believed to be the only current BBG member who regularly meets with groups of employees and listens to their complaints.

The BBG is likely to face further scrutiny from Congress in 2012. The same BBG executives who wanted to end VOA radio and television broadcasts to China have proposed a merger of Radio Free Asia (RFA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and MBN into a large corporate bureaucracy and want to de-federalize VOA and Radio and TV Marti.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors encompasses all U.S. civilian international broadcasting, including the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), Radio and TV Martí, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN)—Radio Sawa and Alhurra Television. The Broadcasting Board of Governors is a bipartisan board comprised of nine members. Eight, no more than four from one party, are appointed by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate; the ninth is the Secretary of State, who serves ex officio.

BBG Watch (BBGWatch.com), an independent website managed by former and current BBG employees, has obtained a copy of BBG Governor Ashe’s statement, which we post below.

Statement of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) member Victor H. Ashe

I hope that 2012 sees a new era of employee-management relations for BBG. I feel the Governors are becoming increasingly aware that having 45 percent of all VOA employees as contract employees presents major issues of fairness, concern and accountability. It creates two classes of employees for a single work force.

I hope BBG director Dick Lobo will appoint a broad based committee representing all groups to review the issue and make recommendations to the Board. The BBG governance committee must take a hard look at this. The recent flu shot issue which was favorably resolved highlights how foolish the two classes of employees had become as it made no sense to deny contract employees flu shots while offering them to federal employees all working in the same building and office space. How this ever occurred in the first place surprised me.

Surveys have consistently shown bad morale. We must turn this around. Contract employees are not surveyed by OPM. Recently, IBB sent out a limited survey on the contracts themselves but not on general work place issues. While well intended, that attempt falls short of what is needed to gauge employee thoughts. We must make a New Year’s resolution to do better in this area. We must walk the walk and not just talk the talk.

We must also ring the bell that boorish behavior in the work place will not be tolerated. We must be open and transparent in how we deal with it. I am confident that the new engaged leadership of David Ensor will prevail and create a new climate in this field. He is implementing new procedures.

I felt my visit to the Edward Murrow Transmission facility in Greenville, NC on December 7 was a good one and I learned a lot. I am convinced it is a serious mistake to close this facility which is the only one on American soil where the American government has jurisdiction. The station in the Philippines is barred from transmissions to China due the Philippine government’s reluctance to upset the Chinese government. That could not happen on American territory.

The Murrow facility has been hidden from public view and I urge it to be more visible. Its name had become Site B which is effectively nameless. However, President Kennedy had participated in 1962 naming it for Edward R Murrow, one of our nation’s most respected newscasters. The signs should be re-erected in North Carolina and the public of Pitt County invited to visit. We should be proud of the Murrow facility.

On December 14, I spent most of the day visiting and meeting employees of MBN in Springfield, VA and was deeply impressed by Brian Conniff and his dedicated staff. They are outstanding. In March the full Board plans to meet there.

Women’s Rights Without Frontiers is a broad-based, international coalition that opposes forced abortion and sexual slavery in China. According to BBG Watch, an independent media freedom website, CUSIB supports radio and television broadcasting to China by the Voice of America (VOA) and radio broadcasting by Radio Free Asia (RFA) so that news such as this one are not blocked by the Chinese Internet censors and those in China who want to receive uncensored news do not risk being monitored by the cyber police.

“Batman” star Christian Bale traveled nine hours from Beijing to visit blind forced abortion opponent Chen Guangcheng. Bale said, “What I really wanted to do was shake the man’s hand and say ‘thank you,’ and tell him what an inspiration he is.”

Bale never got the chance. He was roughed up and forced away from Chen’s village, according to a CNN report.

Bale was in Beijing China for the premier of “The Flowers of War,” a drama about the 1937 Rape of Nanjing. About his attempt to visit Chen, Bale stated, “I’m not brave doing this . . . This was just a situation – I can’t look the other way.”

Congressman Chris Smith with CUSIB Advisory Board Member Reggie Littlejohn in front of a large image of Chen Guangcheng created to support the Chen Guangcheng Sunglasses Campaign to win his freedom

Littlejohn contrasted Bale’s actions with those of Relativity Media. “Christian Bale has used his star power to shine a light on the unjust treatment of Chen Guangcheng. In contrast, Relativity Media filmed “21 and Over” in Linyi, where Chen is languishing under house arrest. They did nothing to help Chen. I hope that moviegoers will demonstrate their concern for Chen Guangcheng at the box office. We encourage people to boycott “21 and Over,” said Reggie Littlejohn.

Christian Bale is not the only one who has focused attention on Chen Guangcheng. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Ambassador to China Gary Locke have both recently spoken on his behalf. “We urge Ambassador Locke to visit Chen Guangcheng,” stated Littlejohn.

The flow of Chinese citizens to visit Chen despite the risk of beatings and detention, and the Chinese and international “Sunglasses” campaigns, have raised the visibility of Chen’s case as well. These campaigns can be found here and here.

Chen Guangcheng exposed the systematic use of forced abortion and sterilization in Linyi City in 2005. For four years, three months, he was jailed, tortured and denied medical treatment. Since his release he has languished under strict house arrest.

Watch the 3-minute Free Chen video here.

Sign a petition to free Chen here.

Stop Forced Abortion – China’s War on Women! Video (4 mins)

The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB) is an independent, nongovernmental organization which supports free flow of uncensored news from the United States to countries without free media. CUSIB supports Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) radio broadcasts to China as the only effective and safe way of news delivery that can defeat censorship of the Internet and the monitoring of pro-democracy activists by the Chinese secret police.

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Russia – Vkontakte social network targeted by security services

Our regular contributor, The Federalist, also makes other points on the BBG’s audience size announcement.

US International Broadcasting and the BBG: The Numbers Game
by The Federalist

In its press release of November 15, 2011 the BBG claims an audience increase of 22 million to a projected total of 187 million people, based on its “audience data.”

Here is a short primer on “the numbers game.”

Everything starts with the questions asked in the survey. The BBG does not provide a breakdown of the questions asked in the press release or in its “research methodology.” This is important because no one can examine how the BBG collates the responses.

Typically, survey questions will provide a range of questions. Within that range will be responses that would collectively be categorized as positive and perhaps one or two responses that would be categorized as negative. Depending on the intended outcome that the BBG wants to demonstrate, one method used could be to lump all the positives together, particularly if collectively they represent a positive aggregate response.

Everyone inside the Cohen Building knows that surveys are an inexact process. This is especially the case when conducting surveys in authoritarian or controlled societies. A lot also has to do with how the survey is conducted, often over the telephone. If people live in a controlled society, the prudent thing to do is to be judicious in how one responds to anonymous surveys. Thus, depending on how things are going in the target area, the responses could be more or less of an accurate representation of respondent habits.

One would also need to know where surveys were conducted: were they concentrated in major urban population centers or did they include respondents in the interior regions of the countries surveyed?

All this being said, let us work with the numbers the BBG provides.

If the BBG numbers are accurate, an audience of 187 million people is not to be taken lightly (for reasons we will get to below).

At the same time, one needs to look at the big picture in the world of numbers. For example:

The total global population is put at about 7 billion.

Of that number, an estimated 2 billion are at the subsistence level.

In China, latest estimates place the population at over 1.3 billion.

In short, 187 million can get lost in the cacophony of the 7 billion.

Next, one should examine the statements made in the press release in support of its survey findings.

“…in Egypt, where Alhurra TV doubled its weekly audience to 15% in tandem with the Arab Spring…”

The question here is how does this compare to other broadcasters, including the regional leader, al-Jazeera TV? The BBG press release doesn’t say. This is a key point. If the BBG audience is fractionally less than that of al-Jazeera, public opinion has moved away from that projected by the United States. Further, in our view, the so-called “Arab Spring” is over. This number could be artificially inflated by momentary events.

Also, the BBG doesn’t say how Alhurra TV fares in the region as a whole. That would be important to see if Alhurra TV is making inroads elsewhere. Since the BBG press release is silent on the point, we can presume that it is not.

“Audience declines took place notably in Iran, where the government continues aggressive jamming of every BBG transmission platform, including satellite uplink jamming;”

Those pesky Iranians. They continue to prove themselves adept at interdiction technology.

But beyond that, another question is how much of the audience loss may be due more to lack of interest than as much to government counter-measures? Keep in mind that the BBG claims that its Farsi-language “Parazit” is widely popular in Iran. One would think that if this were indeed true, it would be reflected in its survey results. Coupled with other agency research on Iran, what may be more the case is that the programs no longer have resonance with an Iranian audience. Further, one must also consider the internal conflict with the Persian News Network (PNN) which some writers allege has become a toady for the regime in Tehran.

Also keep in mind that PNN, largely television based, represents a substantial budgetary “gas guzzler” for the BBG.

We’re saving the best for last.

“While radio remains the BBG’s number one media platform, reaching 106 million people per week, television’s growth puts it 97 million people. The Internet audience was approximately 10 million, with the largest online audiences measured in Iraq, Russia, Indonesia, Egypt and Iran.”

Bingo!

There’s no “while” about it. Radio is still king.

But most important of all is this:

Even if you take the BBG numbers at face value, when you examine them in the context of the BBG “strategic plan,” you can clearly see its disaster in the making.

If you eliminate radio broadcasting, as it is the clear intent of the BBG strategic plan, you lose over half of your audience. That 187 million becomes 81 million.

The television component is no bargain. It is the most expensive production and delivery broadcast medium, requiring more people, more production time, satellite time and fees, etc. In terms of cost, it is the least sustainable of the media choices available to the BBG. Plus, one should keep in mind, as the BBG press release points out, it is vulnerable to interdiction, both in terms of blocking satellite channels and in terms of downlink requirements at the receiving end. While people use satellite dishes around the world, the fact remains that certain regimes periodically confiscate private satellite dishes, in part just because they can. Also, in those places where the BBG relies upon placement on television stations (they are not really affiliates in the same use of the word here in the US), these stations often walk a fine line with the sitting governments. Put something on the air that someone doesn’t like and good-bye BBG programs or risk the loss of one’s license and even invite some jail time if the regime is offended enough.

Last but definitely not least, its global Internet audience is tagged at 10 million. If the BBG carries through with its plans to use the Internet as its sole platform for audio, video and text, it will have the equivalent of no audience.

About 70 years into US international broadcasting, how long will it take the BBG to move its Internet audience to a size approximating its current radio audience, particularly when one notes the ability of third parties to engage effectively in cyber warfare and/or, as in the case with China, to have well-established controls to block websites the government deems as undesirable. It is complete fiction to believe that the BBG will have at its command an impenetrable cyber defense against these attacks.

And there is another thing. The BBG has to pay to be posted to search engines. Lose the search engines and there goes the recognition and access.

“Audience declines took place notably in Iran, where the government continues aggressive jamming of every BBG transmission platform, including satellite uplink jamming; and Pakistan, where the media market is increasingly fragmented and use of radio is declining.”

This statement may not be truly representative of the situational reality. The truth of the matter is that all global media markets are increasingly fragmented. This is a significant issue when one considers the BBG claim that its intended outcome is to be “the leading global news network.”

With specific regard to Pakistan, audience loss may have more to do with over-heated anti-American sentiment and a whole lot less to do with the assertion that “use of radio is declining.” It is well known that the Taliban make considerable use of radio in the border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is well known that the Pakistanis have become increasingly uneasy with unilateral US military actions within this territory. All of these things may have a whole lot more to do with the decline in the BBG’s audience in Pakistan.

Saying that “use of radio is declining” in Pakistan also seemingly contradicts the BBG effort with its “Radio Deewa” and “Radio Aap ki Dunyaa” projects in the region.

Let’s go back to the numbers:

The BBG is laying claim that the intended goal of its “new” strategic plan is to become the world’s leading global news network. What does that mean? How much of that 7 billion in total world population puts the BBG in the hunt to validate that claim? Hovering around 200 million according to its claimed global audience numbers, it’s a long haul to reach anything approximating a reasonable suggestion that the BBG is a “leading global news network.”

And keep in mind that if the BBG carries out its intended destruction of US Government international radio broadcasting, its audience gets cut by more than half. All of those people aren’t going to run to the Internet. That lesson was learned in Russia, contrary to the outrageous claims by the BBG of Russian audience increases. The BBG’s own research showed that its audience in Russia fell off a cliff when it ended its direct VOA Russian radio broadcasts in 2008.

The BBG has set a deadline of 2016 (its Soviet-style five-year plan) to reach its intended goals. Those goals, based on the BBG’s own numbers, would actually represent a substantially diminished audience with the loss of radio broadcasting. VOA director David Ensor essentially reiterated those goals in a recent C-SPAN television interview.

How does this intended outcome benefit the United States? How does this intended outcome represent a judicious use of US taxpayer money? Unfortunately, to all appearances the answer is” it doesn’t.

In the end, audience size aside, it all comes down to effectiveness. The BBG already a sizable “global news network” through its many and varied entities. And still, with all these assets, its penetration of global publics remains challenged.

One last thing: check the numbers of the press release:

106 million radio audience.
97 million television audience.
10 million Internet audience.

Total: 213 million.

That’s more than 187 million at the opening of the press release.

Well, we’ll give the BBG the difference. It’s still not enough to be “the leading global news network.”

Far from it.

The Federalist
November 16, 2011

###

From the BBG official website:

BBG Broadcasts Reach Record Audiences
(WASHINGTON, D.C.—November 15, 2011) U.S. government funded international broadcasters reached an estimated 187 million people every week in 2011, an increase of 22 million from last year’s figure, according to new audience data being made public by the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

“We are pleased that people the world over are responding in unprecedented numbers to our high-quality journalism and active audience engagement,” said BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson. “The ability of our broadcasters to inform, engage and connect audiences through traditional and social media alike lie behind these impressive results and will be essential to driving future audience reach and impact.”

The record numbers, released in the BBG Performance and Accountability Report (PAR), measure the combined audience of the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio and TV Martí, Radio Free Asia (RFA) and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa). The report details impact on audiences around the globe including people in the world’s most repressive media and political environments.

The BBG’s PAR follows on the heels of BBG’s latest strategic plan, Impact through Innovation and Integration, which sets an over-arching objective of making BBG the world’s leading international news agency working to foster freedom and democracy with the goal of reaching 216 million people weekly by 2016.

This year there were significant audience increases in Afghanistan, where RFE/RL and VOA together reach 75% of adults weekly; in Egypt, where Alhurra TV doubled its weekly audience to 15% in tandem with the Arab Spring; and in Indonesia, where VOA’s aggressive affiliate strategy has boosted weekly audiences to some 38 million adults.

Audiences in many other strategically relevant countries held strong. In Nigeria, VOA retains its position as a news source of record with 23 million weekly listeners. In Burma, VOA and RFA reach 26% and 24% of adults, respectively, amounting to a weekly audience of 10 million.

Audience declines took place notably in Iran, where the government continues aggressive jamming of every BBG transmission platform, including satellite uplink jamming; and Pakistan, where the media market is increasingly fragmented and use of radio is declining.

While radio remains the BBG’s number one media platform, reaching 106 million people per week, television’s growth puts it at 97 million people. The Internet audience was approximately 10 million, with the largest online audiences measured in Iraq, Russia, Indonesia, Egypt and Iran.

Download 2011 Performance and Accountability Report (PDF)

BBG 2011 Audience Overview (PDF)

BBG Research Methodology (PDF)

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US International Broadcasting and the BBG: The Numbers Game

From VOA Director David Ensor’s interview with C-Span:

My feeling is that there is a very, very great need for our voice to be heard in China. And we’re going to be looking at creative ways in trying to reach more of the Chinese people with Voice of America.

I’m expecting that it will include — not so much shortwave radio, which our data shows is not reaching very many people anymore in China, though it still reaches some — but more in terms of satellite television; we’ll be doing a lot of work on the Internet. And we’ll use Internet circumvention techniques to try to make sure people are able to see what we put on the Internet, even if there are attempts made by the government to prevent them from doing so.

C-Span explained that VOA is one of five broadcast services of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). The BBG wanted to end all VOA radio and television broadcasts to China in Mandarin and Cantonese on October 1, 2011. Congressional committees blocked this plan and criticized the BBG for poor judgement and the lack of transparency. The BBG was proposing Internet-only news delivery to China, where online access is heavily censored by the Chinese government and VOA websites are blocked. Only very few individuals are capable of circumventing such censorship and doing this may expose them to monitoring by the secret police.

In addition to strong bipartisan criticism in Congress, the BBG plan to end all VOA radio and TV to China, which was adopted before David Ensor became VOA director, was also criticized by human rights groups in China and in the United States. Subsequently, Ensor proposed an expansion of VOA satellite television programs to China, which BBG executives initially wanted to permanently terminate in favor of online access only.

In response to the question about the Congressional criticism of the BBG China plan, David Ensor tried to calm the critics by suggesting that he is not opposed to continuing VOA radio broadcasts on shortwave, but he noted that these are his personal views. He also suggested that VOA shortwave radio audience in China is very small, at one point implying that there may be only 200 Chinese dissidents listening to VOA radio broadcasts. Even the BBG’s highly unreliable audience surveys show that the audience for VOA radio in China numbers several million.

Ensor’s point about the number of VOA radio listeners in China could have been rhetorical, but it sent a misleading message to those who are not familiar with U.S. international broadcasting. Critics of the BBG point out that often history is influenced by key individuals such as Poland’s Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, Pope John Paul II when he was still a priest and later a bishop in communist-ruled Poland, or Mikhail Gorbachev in Russia when he was imprisoned during a coup staged by Soviet hardliners. All of them at such critical moments, when other sources of news were censored or blocked, listened to Western radio broadcasts on shortwave, including the Voice of America. Chinese human rights activists point out that most ordinary Chinese would never admit to survey takers that they are listeners to VOA radio programs. The BBG relies on a company in Beijing to conduct these surveys.

From VOA Director David Ensor’s interview with C-Span:

We need to find better ways to reach China. We’re working on it. I think satellite television has promise. There is a lot of work already being done in terms of Internet reach and mobile device reach, and I think it’s promising.

Shortwave radio, however, still reaches some people in China and personally, I think, we should persist until we have a better way. But, you know, there are different views on that, frankly. Is it a waste of money, is it not a waste of money?

There are people who think that broadcasting to China on shortwave is a waste of money because the audience is so tiny. Then there are others who say that even if you reach 200 dissidents in that vast country, it’s still worth all those millions. Well, you know, reasonable people can disagree.

I pledge to Congressman Rohrabacher and the rest of those listening, we will look for ways to be more effective in China. We want to reach as many Chinese people as we can.

Link to C-Span’s interview with Voice of America Director David Ensor.

The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB) issued a press release on CUSIB Executive Director Ann Noonan’s speech in support of continuing Voice of America (VOA) radio and television broadcasts to China.

November 7, 2011
For Immediate Release

Women and Their Families in China Who Are Victims of Human Rights Abuses Need Voice of America Radio

On Sunday, November 6, 2011 the Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB) Executive Director Ann Noonan joined a panel discussion sponsored by All Girls Allowed, Inc. at New York’s Flushing Sheraton and spoke against plans to cut Voice of America (VOA) radio programs to China:

“… in China today, young fighters for democracy listen to VOA radio. … Radio listening – unlike the Internet – cannot be easily monitored or blocked. Although radio signals can be partially jammed, they can never be completely silenced – unless the U.S. Government decides to end these broadcasts, as it was proposed by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). Let’s hope and pray that will NEVER happen as long as there is no freedom of expression in China or as long as the Chinese people want to learn about America.”

Following a bipartisan action in the U.S. Congress to block the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ proposal, the Federal agency which runs the Voice of America has suspended the termination of VOA radio and television programs to China but is still considering reducing radio broadcasts. Ann Noonan said that these radio programs from the United States are especially needed by women and their families. They provide critical information and give hope and encouragement to the poorest and the most oppressed segments of the Chinese society, said Ms. Noonan. Prior to joining CUSIB, she founded Free Church for China, an NGO which researches and documents religious persecution in the PRC. CUSIB has been contacting BBG members to urge them to continue VOA radio and satellite television to China.

The discussion following Ms. Noonan’s presentation focused on Chai Ling’s new book A Heart for Freedom. Ms. Ling is a Tiananmen Survivor and founder of All Girls Allowed, an organization which works to end forced abortions, gendercide, and trafficking of children in China. Other panelists included Tibetan author Jianglin Li, and former New York State Assembly member Ellen Young.

The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB), www.cusib.org, is a nonpartisan, nongovernmental organization working to strengthen free flow of uncensored news from the United States to countries with restricted media environments.

For further information contact CUSIB co-founder Ted Lipien (415) 793-1642.

 
Read the full text of Ann Noonan’s presentation for the discussion on Chai Ling’s book A Heart for Freedom:

In Word

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Women and Their Families in China Who Are Victims of Human Rights Abuses Need Voice of America Radio

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United States – Absurd charges brought against reporters covering Occupy Wall Street movement

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) has released what it calls “the framework of its new strategic plan to enhance the global impact of U.S. international broadcasting through innovation and integration.” Apparently, not even BBG members have seen a copy of the full plan, which was developed by the executive staff, but what has been published Tuesday in Washington raises many doubts about the direction of U.S. international broadcasting. Here are some of Free Media Online concerns:

1. Absentee Board During the crucial time in the development of the strategic plan, most BBG members did not show up regularly for board meetings. Starting July 2010, only three BBG members (Ashe, Isaacson, Mulhaupt) have a perfect attendance record. Others were often absent, which may indicate low level of their interest and involvement in what should have been a period of close scrutiny of numerous staff reports and recommendations regarding the strategic plan.

This raises the question whether the BBG bureaucracy has received proper guidance and supervision from the absentee, part-time Board and to what extent the plan reflects the staff’s own bureaucratic interests, which may be incompatible with the expectations of Congress and the American people.

2. No Cost Estimate There is nothing in the plan that would tell Congress and the American people how much it is going to cost U.S. taxpayers. Other than making unsupported and unrealistic claims of expected gains in audience reach, there is also nothing in the plan to indicate what the United States would gain from its implementation in terms of program impact and savings, if any.

3. Failed Management Team The strategic plan was developed by the same BBG executives who proposed to terminate all Voice of America radio and satellite television transmissions to China on October 1, 2011, the anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. This proposal was criticized by human rights activists in China and in the U.S. It was rejected by Democrats and Republicans in committees both in the House and the Senate.

The same team had proposed and the previous Board had approved the termination of VOA radio and television to Russia, a decision that — despite strong objections from key members of Congress — was implemented in 2008, just 12 days before Russian armed forces invaded and occupied part of the Republic of Georgia. The team that developed the strategic plan opted for the Internet-only program delivery for VOA in China despite Beijing’s effective Internet censorship and blocking of VOA websites.

4. No One to Explain America to the World The framework of the BBG strategic plan ignores Public Law 94-350, which requires the Voice of America (VOA) “to present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively, and [also to] present responsible discussion and opinion on these policies.”

5. VOA Ignored; Its Employees Considered a Liability The BBG’s new mission statement: “To inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy” also fails to reflect Public Law 94-350′s mandate that in addition to providing news, VOA “will represent America, not any single segment of American society, and will therefore present a balanced and comprehensive projection of significant American thought and institutions.”

Nor does the new mission statement confirm that “VOA news will be accurate, objective and comprehensive.” In fact, the BBG plan seems to favor de-federalizing the Voice of America, which runs the risk of giving the job of explaining America to the world to inexperienced, poorly-paid and poorly-trained contract employees. The BBG management team has been accused of exploiting contract employees and has been rated in employee surveys as one of the worst in the entire federal system. The issue of employee morale and the poor treatment of contract employees was raised last month at the BBG public meeting by BBG member Ambassador Victor Ashe.

6. News Agency Mission Incompatible with Broadcasting Mission Abroad The BBG’s strategic objective: “To become the world’s leading international news agency by 2016, focused on the agency’s mission and impact” appears highly unrealistic and has the potential of detracting from the mission of specialized news reporting and analysis for individual countries and regions.

7. Unrealistic Goals The BBG’s performance goal “To reach 216 million in global weekly audience by 2016″ also appears highly unrealistic — unless the BBG plans to include the U.S. audience in the count or to change its audience measurement methodology, and even then reaching the set goal is extremely unlikely.

8. Program Content and Program Quality Ignored The framework of the strategic plan focuses on audience reach and technology but completely ignores program content, program quality and impact issues.

9. Costs of New Media Exaggerated; TV and Radio Broadcasting Ignored While the plan rightly focuses on innovation, BBG executives tend to greatly exaggerate the costs of the Internet and new media, which are largely free and used by millions of individuals and institutional content providers, while the number of international broadcasters is limited. The BBG executive staff has been eager to eliminate satellite television and radio broadcasting to key areas of the world and has shown no concern that under their plan 750 million Chinese citizens would have no access to any VOA programs and that 45 VOA Chinese Branch journalists specializing in human rights reporting would lose their jobs.

10. Domestic Distribution A Great Danger to Mission Abroad The BBG’s call to end the legal restrictions on domestic distribution of programs runs a great risk of distracting the BBG from the mission of serving America’s interests abroad. The BBG can barely manage to fulfill its mission now. The quality of many programs is woefully poor. Music has replaced news and information because VOA and other BBG broadcasters lack proper resources. Many programs have already been eliminated, dozens upon dozens of experienced journalists have lost their jobs while the BBG bureaucracy keeps growing and is likely to expand rather than shrink under the new consolidation proposal. This proposal seems a sure way toward expanding the bureaucracy even further and to shifting the focus from international audiences to U.S. political and commercial domestic concerns. The authors of the plan are disingenuous in implying that BBG program content cannot be used in the U.S. Private individuals and commercial media outlets in the U.S. can use VOA programs. The BBG is simply prohibited from actively marketing these programs in the U.S.

Overall, the framework of the BBG strategic plan lacks a clear sense of mission. Its key components will distract journalists and broadcasters from achieving impact abroad. The part-time, absentee Board members failed to scrutinize the plan, which has all the highlights of being produced by in-house bureaucrats trying to protect their jobs and to hide their failures from Congress and the American people. The least BBG members could do is to attend all of their rather infrequent public meetings, analyze closely what their staff is proposing and pay more attention to what members of Congress, independent journalists, and human rights activists are saying.

Let’s take a moment to review the VOA Charter:

“The long-range interests of the United States are served by communicating directly with the peoples of the world by radio. To be effective, the Voice of America must win the attention and respect of listeners. These principles will therefore govern Voice of America (VOA) broadcasts:

1. VOA will serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news. VOA news will be accurate, objective and comprehensive.

2. VOA will represent America, not any single segment of American society, and will therefore present a balanced and comprehensive projection of significant American thought and institutions.

3. VOA will present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively, and will also present responsible discussion and opinion on these policies.”

Gerald R Ford
President of the United States
Signed: July 12, 1976
Public Law 94-350

There you have it: the keys to mission success for US international broadcasting, which — in addition to radio — is now also using satellite television, Internet, and digital phone technology to deliver programs to its intended audiences abroad.

On the other hand, the BBG has its own mission statement:

“To inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.”

They are not the same. Thus, there are questions:

What does the BBG statement mean? How is the BBG going to go about its mission statement?

And more pointedly, what is the intended outcome? What constitutes “support?”

If you asked individual members of the BBG to write down what its mission statement means, it wouldn’t be surprising if you came up with as many different explanations as there are BBG members.

In controlled societies where the American interpretation of “freedom and democracy” doesn’t exist, what is to be accomplished?

There’s a word missing from the BBG’s “new” mission statement:

Explain.

For example, how does the BBG explain US actions juxtaposed to the concepts of “freedom and democracy?” How does the BBG intend to explain how the world’s greatest democracy reaches agreements with non-democratic regimes, such as the agreement to base drone aircraft in Ethiopia? How does the BBG explain its agreement with the Ethiopian government to censor Ethiopian dissidents from Amharic or other VOA Horn of Africa Service programs?

How does the BBG explain that after years of US and Allied intervention and sacrifice to free Afghanistan from the stranglehold of the Taliban, the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, says that Afghanistan would join Pakistan in a war with the United States?

Since it isn’t expressly stated, would we trust the BBG to explain any issue of consequence, in detail?

No.

The intended trajectory of the BBG’s “new” mission statement appears to be to dummy down detailed news content. Indeed, we hear that a term of art making its way around the VOA Newsroom is that the agency is going to take a “holistic” approach to news. What is that? It makes it sound as if the BBG is a repository for some kind of New Age mumbo-jumbo.

As part of this trajectory, the agency seems to intend that US international broadcasting is going to be reduced to nothing more than a social media, chit-chat website. Is that what the BBG is talking about when it says it is going to “connect” people?

This is why, as Secretary of State Clinton says, “We are losing the information war.” At the end of the day, the BBG isn’t doing the things required to maintain US credibility around the world. To all appearances, it is going down the pathway of sound-bite superficiality.

The VOA Charter is a clear articulation of what constitutes the purpose and intent of US international broadcasting, what we need to communicate to world audiences.

Here is a truism about “freedom and democracy:” these are high maintenance concepts and processes. They require constant attention. Otherwise, there can be grave consequences. The consequences can be social, economic and political. One need only pick up an American newspaper and read the variety of issues confronting American society or the democratic societies in Western Europe. You get the picture quickly of what can happen when the vigilance that freedom and democracy requires goes lax.

“Freedom and democracy” aren’t out-of-the-box, ready to work constructs. They require a plan. In the American Experience, the plan would include the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. How transferable are these foundation principles to societies with no history of these principles in their own historical record and experiences?

And at every step, even in the most ideal circumstances, there are obstacles and unforeseen events that test the strength of these processes.

What the BBG’s “new” mission statement does is to trivialize the complexities and come up with a superficial approach to those complexities.

When the rubber meets the road, another ultimate truism is that freedom is not free. It can come at great cost. Add up the number of American wars over three centuries and the beginning of a fourth (from the 18th through the present 21st centuries). We are presently in the beginning observances of the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War. This war was and remains a defining moment in the American Experience. How is this signal event explained in the context of the BBG’s mission statement?

Consider also the various economic cycles experienced in this country, including the Great Depression and various recession cycles. How does the BBG intend to explain that free market societies, this comes as part of the package of “freedom and democracy.”

Also consider the civil rights movement and other protest movements, including the present “Occupy Wall Street.”

What the VOA Charter does is present a comprehensive definition and plan as to what US international broadcasting is supposed to do. The BBG’s “new” mission statement does neither. It is elusive and ambiguous. By deviating from the charter and attempting to substitute its own mission statement, the BBG undermines mission effectiveness of US international broadcasting. It substantially narrows the mission to one expected outcome: freedom and democracy. If this outcome is unachievable, in its effect, the BBG will have failed and thus have no mission. It is already far along in this catastrophe in Russia, the Arab and Muslim world and as it intends, in China.

“Freedom and democracy” are often used as buzz words to elicit a response or manipulate public opinion. Of late, it is often thrown around by individuals or organizations caught up in political unrest as a way of attempting to legitimize or garner support for events that have no certain outcome.

The BBG is playing the same game. In its case, the intended audience is the US Congress. Who isn’t “in support of freedom and democracy?” It is an optimum use of a phrase intended to optimize the BBG ability to get increased funding.

For this reason, members of the Congress should be wary. The record of the BBG leaves a lot to be desired, in Russia, the Middle East and if carried out, in China. Instead of giving the BBG a free pass, members of Congress need to be asking tough questions and getting factual responses. If those responses aren’t forthcoming from the BBG (and its penchant for oxymoronic phrases and other mumbo-jumbo), it should seek out answers from third parties independent of the BBG who are subject matter proficient on US international broadcasting.

Things have changed. American taxpayers do not like to be used as ATM machines involving programs they don’t understand, don’t see as important in their daily lives and are symbolic of government waste. That is today’s environment and it is an environment that needs to be communicated clearly and unequivocally to the BBG and its IBB handlers.

Not long into the unrest in Egypt that toppled the Mubarak government, Senator John Kerry opined that, “It is too early to do a victory lap for freedom and democracy in the Middle East.” The senator is correct. The BBG needs to heed these words, get itself out of its self-inflicted fog and get down to the real business of US international broadcasting as embodied in the VOA Charter.

The Federalist
November 1, 2011

Here is the original post:
Russia – Government eager to use Net surveillance software currently in test phase

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Voice of America’s hit TV show “Parazit” Wednesday that Iran’s military is becoming increasingly involved in the Iranian economy.

“Parazit,” a satirical Farsi language program broadcast to Iran by VOA’s Persian News Network, has become the most widely watched international program in Iran, despite Iranian efforts to jam the broadcasts.

But the same Broadcasting Board of Governors which manages the Voice of America and pays for VOA television broadcasts to Iran with taxpayers’ money wanted to end VOA television and radio programs to China and to deliver VOA news to China only through the Internet. In their communications with Congress, BBG officials were downplaying the fact that the Chinese government blocks VOA Chinese websites and censors the Internet.

At the same time, BBG officials tried to convince members of Congress that “almost no one” listens to VOA radio in China on shortwave. Congressional staffers did not buy this argument, and Congressmen derided “BBG bureaucrats” for suggesting that their audience surveys in China could be deemed reliable. They told the BBG to pay more attention to the intimidation tactics used by the Chinese regime against the population that undoubtedly prevent many people from admitting that they listen to Western broadcasts.

Few people noticed, however, that BBG members — as well as their executive staff who cooked up the China plan — were completely silent about VOA satellite television broadcasts, which they also wanted to eliminate. Unlike VOA shortwave radio transmissions, which are partially jammed by the Chinese, VOA satellite television broadcasts get through and can be easily watched in China. The BBG proposal would deprive the Voice of America of all of its broadcasting capabilities to China. It was a very curious move.

Taking a bipartisan stand, Congressional committees in the House and the Senate blocked the BBG plan, but the question remains why BBG members and their staffers wanted to end these VOA television broadcasts, which have had more members of Congress as guests than any other VOA program. In any future crisis affecting China or U.S.-Chinese relations, satellite television is likely to play a vital role, as it does now in Iran and as it did during the Balkan crisis and during the Orange Revolution in Ukraine.

It is technically possible for repressive regimes to jam satellite television signals, but interfering with satellite transmissions is a more drastic and more visible step than jamming radio signals or censoring the Internet. Regimes facing a serious crisis usually are not able to do all the blocking and jamming all at once. They do in fact go first after the Internet, as we have seen in Egypt and several other countries in the Middle East during the Jasmine Revolution.

We now learn that the new Voice of America director David Ensor not only does not want to end VOA satellite television broadcasts to China; he wants to expand them. He is absolutely right. Time and time again, the Voice of America played an important news role during political crises abroad and attracted a huge audience when it had satellite television programs to countries like Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, and Iran.

So why did the BBG executive staff want to quietly end VOA TV to China along with radio? They managed to convince BBG members with little U.S. government international broadcasting experience — BBG Chairman Isaacson knows CNN but is new to U.S. government broadcasting — to go along with this plan until they received a rude awakening in Congress. Politically, their plan was toxic, but they thought that they could push it through as they did with the termination of VOA radio and television to Russia in 2008.

Russia invaded part of the Republic of Georgia just days after the plan was carried out, a few members of Congress complained, VOA lost a sizable audience — and nothing happened. BBG bureaucrats thought they could do the same thing with VOA in China, but they miscalculated. China is not the same as Russia as far as long term U.S. national security interests are concerned.

So why did they want to do this so badly? BBG Watch believes that the answer is very simple, albeit not easily apparent. It has nothing to do with national security or programming strategy and everything to do with bureaucratic interests of certain BBG officials. It also explains the actions of VOA executive staffers who advised former VOA Director Dan Austin to go along with the program cutting plans.

In the case of VOA executive staff, eliminating journalistic positions and programs ensures than their jobs are not put on the line when it comes to budget cuts. They have been very successful in protecting their positions while getting rid of dozens upon dozens of experienced VOA journalists.

Understanding the actions of BBG executive staff requires a somewhat deeper analysis. Audience surveys have shown that historically VOA language services with satellite television capabilities have been able to attract big audiences. These BBG officials, however, want to make sure that the surrogate broadcasters like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia can justify their continued existence.

The surrogate broadcasters do in fact perform a different function than VOA — and an equally valuable one — but because of VOA TV, they often have a smaller audience than VOA. (This became quite obvious when comparing VOA and Radio Liberty audiences in Russia just before BBG officials ended VOA Russian broadcasts.) Eliminating Voice of America television, and in some cases also VOA radio programs, eliminates competition and ensures that the favorite broadcasters of individual BBG staffers and BBG members get their funding from Congress.

Cynical, wasteful, harmful to U.S. interests? BBG Watch believes all of it is true. Unless, of course, killing VOA TV — the goose that lays a golden egg — is the only way to save the surrogate broadcasters from Congressional scrutiny and possible closure. Even that does not justify such a cynical strategy that weakens America’s ability to explain U.S. policies to audiences abroad through the Voice of America. As Secretary Clinton said earlier this year, the U.S. is losing the information war. To win this war, both VOA and surrogate broadcasters are needed. But what’s most needed is a major reform of U.S. international broadcasting, starting with the BBG.

In some cases, the surrogate broadcasters may not have as large an audience as VOA — although one never knows from surveys in countries like China — but they specialize in domestic news in countries without free media. In some cases, surrogate broadcasters do some things better than VOA. Closing them down would be just as foolish as terminating VOA radio and TV to Russia and China.

So where can we find money to keep all of these important Voice of America and surrogate broadcasts going in this difficult budget environment? BBG Watch has an answer. More than a hundred of journalistic and programming jobs have been eliminated at the Voice of America in recent years but the BBG, IBB, and VOA management and administration kept growing to support far fewer programs.

We hear that the same bureaucrats who wanted to fire 45 VOA journalists preparing programs to China are now telling Director Ensor that the only way to pay for the expansion of VOA TV programs to China is by reducing radio broadcasts. We have a better solution. Reducing VOA radio presence in China would be both wrong and foolish and would hurt BBG in Congress, while reducing the number of non-journalistic and non-productive management positions would improve the efficiency of the organization and would do wonders for employee morale.

No one will notice if 20, 30 or even 60 percent of SES and other highest-paid BBG and VOA executives are gone. In fact, their departure will greatly improve employee morale. The absence of their advice will definitely save BBG members from further political embarrassments and David Ensor can get his money to pay for the expansion of VOA satellite television to China. It’s a win-win proposal for the Board and U.S. international broadcasting.

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Officials hail Voice of America TV interview in Persian with Hillary Clinton; then what about TV to China?

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China – Beijing court throws out appeal by jailed cyber-dissident Wang Lihong

On Friday, October 14, the Broadcasting Board of Governors put out a press release heralding its “new” alleged “strategic plan.”

Well, really, this isn’t something “new.” It’s more a case of something being recycled and repackaged. The goals are the same: the destruction of effective US international broadcasting. Someone inside the Cohen Building must think they are being clever. It’s the same stuff, different day.

Granted, this is a press release. However, it is revealing in how the BBG sees some of the things it is doing. For example, you see words like “evaluate,” “develop” and “explore.” None of these things are synonymous with planning. They are synonymous with conceptualizing, testing ideas. So what you see is more of a concept, an idea and less of a meticulous, detailed process of moving ideas into actual actions.

If it hasn’t done so already, the BBG is going to hire a consultant to translate the idea into a plan. There are two things of importance here: (1) the requisite brain power does not reside in the Cohen Building to formulate the plan and (2) down the road, the same requisite brain power does not reside in the Cohen Building to execute the plan. They’re both bad omens, the latter perhaps being the worst of the two. Can or will the BBG follow the “instructions in the box” provided by the consultant? Past experience says they can’t or they won’t, especially if the “instructions” do not comport with the dreamscape of their concept/idea. The “new” strategic plan is much the same as the “old” strategic plan: it’s too big for the careerists in the Cohen Building to get their arms around.

In the private sector, when something this ambitious is attempted, press releases announcing what is coming often put price tags as to the cost. Nowhere in the BBG press release is there any mention of the cost of this concept/idea. That tells the reader of the press release that either the Board doesn’t know how much this is going to cost or that it is afraid to spell it out. The Board doesn’t even offer an estimated price tag for its pie-in-the-sky concept. This is lack of transparency. American taxpayers are entitled to know and to decide, through their elected representatives, whether this particular BBG boondoggle is worth the cost.

Let’s consider at least one item that appears to be at least in the “thinking about it” aspect of the concept:

Right off the bat, we know that the BBG wants to relocate from the Cohen Building. Most often mentioned is acquiring space in the Dulles Town Center in Virginia, west of DC – as in way west of DC, without access to mass transit in the near to foreseeable future. This aspect of the “strategic idea” has enormous costs attached to it, both in terms of exiting the Cohen Building and developing the infrastructure and space requirements in the new location. There may be other similar issues with regard to sites elsewhere in the United States and/or abroad that would be affected by the BBG “strategic idea.”

Someone has to pay for this. That “someone” happens to be the US taxpayer.
Once again: how much is this going to cost? It may have escaped the attention of the BBG or its IBB staff that the US Government isn’t exactly awash in surplus cash these days.

There are other considerations:

A plan has timelines. It has cost estimates for each incremental aspect of the plan along these timelines. None of this is spelled out in the press release.

By contrast, consider the expansion of the METRO system in the greater DC area. Aspects of that plan are constantly being addressed in public statements, estimating the cost and the delivery date of new extensions and new equipment to the existing system. None of that is visible in the BBG’s press release.

Some experience with agency projects has been that projects don’t get completed on time. That’s more cost.

The BBG has already demonstrated another aspect of its “plan:” it will terminate certain services before the plan is fully developed.

For example, in 2008 the BBG ended its direct broadcasts to Russia via the Voice of America (VOA). The agency’s own research shows that its audience fell off a cliff when that happened. In addition, it wants to terminate VOA Mandarin and Cantonese broadcasts, supposedly relying on Radio Free Asia (RFA) to maintain a token radio presence until the Board kills that off, too.

The true “genius” of this approach is what is called “the consequence of unexpected events.” In other words, setting something in motion with either no or limited ability to respond to events unforeseen. Remember, not long after the BBG ended its VOA Russian broadcasts, the Russian Republic invaded the Republic of Georgia. Not having effective reporting via radio broadcasts of the VOA Russian service was a huge victory for the Russians all by itself.

The press release also talks about “developing” cyber countermeasures. This means the radio broadcasts will be dead before the cyber countermeasures are in place.

There should be no doubt whatsoever that the BBG is behind the curve in this critical area. The situation in cyber warfare is not static. It is evolving constantly. We already know that the Chinese and the Iranians are well ahead of the curve in this regard and are no doubt continuing to advance and refine the programs they use to block Internet content and/or to attack websites they view as hostile to their national interests.

Another cost issue regards running parallel operations while transitioning to new physical plants (the Cohen Building to the Dulles Town Center scenario). It is not going to be a situation in which operations end on a Friday at the old location and resume at the new location on Monday. It doesn’t work that way. Anyone with broadcasting experience knows that.

One of the things the BBG likes to hawk is that it will save money by ending duplication of language services. This is a bogus argument. There is no language duplication. There are entities with the same language services. But as the Board fully knows, different entities have different missions. The language services facilitate the mission of the specific entity.

There is a very legitimate question of what the intended mission of a reorganized entity is going to be. The press release makes clear that the BBG intends to attempt to comingle the three grantees, which have separate audiences, missions, etc. That can’t be something that will go smoothly. As already noted, the BBG intends to usurp VOA Mandarin and Cantonese and plant it under the flag of RFA which has an entirely different mission. That can’t be good, in part because the institutional identity of VOA will be destroyed. It would be analogous to the BBC taking a broadcast language service of longstanding BBC identity and handing it over to a lesser known enterprise as an “XYZ” entity, for example.

Particularly troubling is the idea of taking listener/viewer content and using it on-the-air. How does one verify that the content is legitimate and is not doctored or planted by individuals with ulterior motives or other “masters?” It happens all the time on the Internet and one should expect the BBG to be just as vulnerable under this strategic “idea.” In order to validate itself in its “global news network” posture, and to demonstrate that it has superior timely news reporting, one can expect things to get on the air with less than complete scrutiny in the attempt to be a step ahead of more experienced networks.

Once again the American taxpayer is being called upon to write a blank check and turn it over to the BBG. That is a big mistake. The agency’s track record is suspect up to this point (in places like Russia and the Middle East). One should not throw good money after bad.

Last but not least, Secretary of State Clinton has made it clear, “We are losing the information war.” The agency responsible for losing it is the BBG. Nothing in the BBG’s “new strategic plan” is demonstrative of a turnaround in this misfortune.

Memo to Secretary Clinton: the BBG “strategy of defeat” continues.

The Federalist
October 15, 2011

Link:
The “New” BBG Strategic Plan